Gaijin and Konami couldn't have done any more with this game. The attention to detail and effort emphasised on creating the most comprehensive experience on the market is unmistakable. Everything from stunning plane and landscape textures to simulation physics combine to immerse even the fussiest of players. Do yourself a favour and pick up a copy of a great game!

I agree with MickT. I feel with some of the negative reviews out there, I had to help shed some positive light on this amazing game. I get so frustrated when I read reviews that mark the game down for being too "hard". The game is a SIMULATION, that is the whole point. A magazine giving this game a 3/10 just shows ignorance. Why even review the game if you hate the style of game.I agree with MickT. I feel with some of the negative reviews out there, I had to help shed some positive light on this amazing game. I get so frustrated when I read reviews that mark the game down for being too "hard". The game is a SIMULATION, that is the whole point. A magazine giving this game a 3/10 just shows ignorance. Why even review the game if you hate the style of game. It's why I don't review Barbie Horse Grooming Simulator. Here is my (not so) quick rundown of the game:

Gameplay: (10). Absolutely amazing flight model and physics engine for a console game. It can be a beast just trying to take off and keep your plane in the air, but to me, that is what is so rewarding. Actually pulling off a carrier landing in a thunderstorm with high wind on simulation setting is about as difficult as anything in gaming, but man does it feel good to do. I could spend hours just practicing landings and stunt flying, but since this is a combat game, I will focus on that. The AI is quite good, except for the occasional collision between friendlies. It really does feel like you are fighting humans in the dogfights though. The physics engine just really makes the combat stand out. Being able to pick apart pieces of your enemies plane just feels right. Blowing a hole in their fuselage and seeing your screen go black as it coats with oil is a great touch. Watching pilots bail out as there plane breaks to pieces and explodes in a fireball just never gets old. The developers modeled everything down to the smallest detail. Take a dive too fast with your landing gear out, and you may see a wheel or two rip off. Then you are forced to try and land the plane sans a wheel. Great stuff here if you are a sim fan!

The difficulty modes give great variety for every type of player, but this game is fairly hard no matter what setting. Simplified makes it impossible to stall and the flight is pretty steady. You still have to control things like landing gear though. Realistic cranks up the difficulty and adds stalls and spins. Simulation is for the hardcore only. It adds propeller flutter, black outs, red outs, removes the HUD. and makes just shooting down one enemy feel like a grand achievement. The best part is that you can also use the "custom" difficulty level that allows you to tweak everything form plane damage, to the HUD, to the flight model. There are also a ton of modes to play with. Main campaigns, online, dynamic campaigns, solo missions, and even create your own mission modes. There are even encyclopedias for history buffs, a hangar to view all the planes in detail (and mod them), and even a replay mode that lets you replay the whole mission with different camera angles and speeds and save it! There is also great pacing with the unlocking of content within the game. Play everything on easy mode, and it will take forever to unlock the dozens of planes, but crank it up and although it is MUCH harder, you will see huge rewards for completing missions. I just can't get over the amount of content packed into this game for $40!!!

Graphics: (9) Not sure why there are any complaints here, but these are some of the best flight game graphics I have seen. The landscapes, water, sky, clouds, lighting, and everything in the environment looks stunning. The ground even looks good up close, which is more than most flight games can claim. It is great to see the details like crewmen running around working on the carriers while you are taking off and landing. The planes themselves are the stars here though, and they do not disappoint. Each one is modeled with full destructibility and moving parts. I believe there are over 100 planes, and they all look amazing. You can also change paint jobs and weapon loadouts, once you unlock them.

Sound: (10) To be honest, it couldn't be much better. The music is decent (reminds of Uncharted's score), but I usually turn it off during gameplay. The combat sounds are breathtaking though. From the booms of shells going off near your plane, to the hum of the prop, to the wheel squeaks and wind rattles while landing, to the wind buffeting and pulling at the rivets as you stall and go into a nose dive, everything here is top notch. Overall: (10) Hands down the best flight sim to ever grace a game console. Honestly, there isn't even any competition. Birds of prey was ok, but it never really lived up to the potential of its predecessors (IL-2). This game is essentially IL-2 on consoles, with the slight modifications required to make it playable. I had no idea this was even coming out until the day it released, and just blown away at how complete a $40 budget game can be. This just replaced Skyrim as the most played game in my PS3. If you have the patience to learn the controls and even a passing interest in flight sims, I would HIGHLY recommend giving this a go! Mad props to the developers (pun intended).…Expand

Edit:God knows why this site won't let me say c ockpit, so I'm putting a space in the middle, please ignore it -

-----Easily the best flight sim on any consoles PERIOD in terms of realism and immersion. Even with the standard PS3 controller this is awesome, the custom mapping is setup so that with any stick or controller you can set the sensitivity, this allows the PS3 sticks to workEdit:God knows why this site won't let me say c ockpit, so I'm putting a space in the middle, please ignore it -

-----Easily the best flight sim on any consoles PERIOD in terms of realism and immersion. Even with the standard PS3 controller this is awesome, the custom mapping is setup so that with any stick or controller you can set the sensitivity, this allows the PS3 sticks to work well with it and it's very responsive. On to the game, the planes are great, a very wide selection, though this is mainly a pacific game they still include a load of Russian and German planes, including a few Australian and Italian ones as well. They all feel different and will handle differently, and the realism is spot-on. Things like the P-39's altitude limits, the Me-163 being spin resistant, planes being able to land in the water, and certain planes not having trimming equipment are all in the game, and the physics work very nicely. Along with this is a strong online playerbase spanning all difficulties(realistic, simulator, simplified),a great decal system including common phrases and a sizable amount of emblems from real WW2 squads, and custom schemes from real WW2 squads(excluding Japan and Australia, there are decals but no paint schemes other than the stock ones). Online has a few gamemodes, the most interesting being one where the goal is to land on an airfield and capture it while the enemy is subsequently trying to land and shoot you, and a sort of base vs base game where a skilled bomber can make a big difference. If you don't want to play online, there is free flight where you can fly around and practice landing in different conditions and a mission editor where you can customize exactly what you want to do. This game is very realistic and has a huge curve, and even after dozens of hours and 80+ missions on simulator mode landing is still challenging, this game is 40 dollars brand new but easily better than most 60 dollar titles. My only gripe with this game is that a few planes lack c ockpits. Every fighter, even the funky German ones, have c ockpits. About 50-70% of the heavy bombers including the B-17E,G and the Catalina. Most Russian bombers do have c ockpits including the Il-2 and If I remember correctly the Il-10. The only 2 seater bomber with a c ockpit in it is the Mosquito.Also the Stuka doesn't have the siren. However, these are extremely minor unless flying that B-24 in c ockpit view is absolutely mandatory for you. Also the single player campaign is pretty good, with cutscenes and backdrops to major battles, though it isn't 100% to the end of the pacific campaign it includes Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, Wake Island, and Pearl Harbor. Overall I would recommend this to anyone who wants a realistic simulator on a console, this is a PC quality sim and that doesn't come around very often on consoles Collapse…Expand

It's hard to say much more then has already been said about this wonderful game. Some of the critic reviews are downright shocking and prove once again that certain genres just cannot be reviewed properly by ones who are not 'fans'. If you are a flight sim person or a World War II buff, this game is for you. I just picked it up last week and I have not taken it out of my console since.It's hard to say much more then has already been said about this wonderful game. Some of the critic reviews are downright shocking and prove once again that certain genres just cannot be reviewed properly by ones who are not 'fans'. If you are a flight sim person or a World War II buff, this game is for you. I just picked it up last week and I have not taken it out of my console since. Fantastic job Gaijin and Konami....thank you!…Expand

I really like the authentic plan models from WWII vintage, the taking off, the realism of keeping your throttle down to keep from stalling, the landing, and ....that's about it. The missions themselves are simplistic, brief and rather unexciting. The combat is extremely difficult even on their "simplicity" level It takes forever to catch up to the multiple enemies and when you do youI really like the authentic plan models from WWII vintage, the taking off, the realism of keeping your throttle down to keep from stalling, the landing, and ....that's about it. The missions themselves are simplistic, brief and rather unexciting. The combat is extremely difficult even on their "simplicity" level It takes forever to catch up to the multiple enemies and when you do you have to lock on with the L2 button while at the same time keeping your plane's nose leveled with the L stick. This targeting design is incredibly awkward. The target will keep floating away on you so you must constantly adjust your L stick which is extremely touchy causing you to fly by the target without getting off a shot. Your rounds are limited so you can't waste your rounds by strafing the target to knock it out of the air or else you'll end up without any rounds for the other planes and fail the mission. The overall presentation of the game's storyline is weak. I suppose the problem is that the game is a simulator with major limitations. The game is lacking in so many other attributes that today's war games have that you shouldn't be paying more than $15 for this experience. Because of this, it's a rather dull ride...or flight.…Expand

A truly superb game, excellent handling, great graphics and tons of missions. The plane mdels are amazing as is the landscape, weather conitions and lighting. Online is a great laugh. Don't pay any attention to the negative reviews, I can't imagine what game they must have been reviewing!

This plane simulator made by the producers of il2 stourmikov is the best available for consoles as was its predecessor il2 most of the other available aircraft games are arcade only. Birds of steel has an arcade style set up for beginners right up to full simulation for pro players and also has a fully customisable difficulty setting control settings and customisable missions. The modelsThis plane simulator made by the producers of il2 stourmikov is the best available for consoles as was its predecessor il2 most of the other available aircraft games are arcade only. Birds of steel has an arcade style set up for beginners right up to full simulation for pro players and also has a fully customisable difficulty setting control settings and customisable missions. The models of the planes are highly detailed inside and out with some planes having exact replica **** areas. the locations look great and the sea in an aviation game never looked so good. multiple camera angles and views mean you can view the action from almost any angle. And there is a replay system so you can watch youre best missions again. With a reasonable historic campaign a new dynamic campaign, solo missions, co op missions, special events a mission editor and multi-player with various modes theres enough content too keep you busy for 100s of hours if you so wish. with over 100-planes to fly and the new battle of britain dlc campaign this is the ultimate in flight sims for the ps3. The only bad point is the games availability upon release it was unavailable in most stores, even konami online store was unavailable due to maintenance and it still is. So if you see a copy buy and try a great game. there must have been a distribution issue as none of the larger online stores have it in-stock, order only. a shame as it deserves good support.…Expand

Depending on how brave you are (or your peripheral set up) the handling model can be altered from reasonably forgiving to brow-mopping stressful. Knuckle down and learn the nuances and you'll lose yourself in some glorious moments, recreating key battles and moments, swopping through the air and perfecting the art of dogfighting. [May 2012, p80]